There is a lot to criticise about the American way of doing things, but the country has always had a knack of pulling back from the brink. Watergate is an example. There has always been an underlying, deep-rooted respect by most ordinary Americans for the democratic system in that country, in spite of the abuses and imperfections. Things are changing but I still have hope that the system of checks and balances will kick in again, that Trump will go too far, and that he will be replaced, not in a coup, but according to proper procedures that do exist for such things. On the basis of his actions up to now, he seems to have no sense of where the boundaries of common decency lie and no respect for legitimate traditions and practices that have built up over more than 200 years, never mind simple basic politeness. The fact that Republicans have a majority in both houses of Congress is no protection; most Republicans also detest him. I for one hope his reign is very short-lived.

Problem is that if Pence from the religious right become President then The Handmaid's Tale may come true..

This, the average person on the street voted for a billionaire who hasn't paid tax is decades to represent them against.... billionaires that don't pay tax.

Queue the Tui bill board

I think if you do some reading, people didn't vote for him for those reasons. He was CRYSTAL clear about how he perceived financial matters and that he intends to give tax cuts to the rich. He was unapologetic about it during the debates and argued against tax hikes.

Problem is that if Pence from the religious right become President then The Handmaid's Tale may come true..

Compared to Trump, even Pence might start looking good.

I am starting to wonder about some things I have noticed. During the campaign, I watched a video of Hillary’s speech to Congress during the Roe vs Wade debate. I’m not sure of the date but 1983 sticks in my mind for some reason. Two things struck me about this. First, her presentation was much, much better than during the campaign. Her manner came across as relaxed and natural. She spoke in calm, measured tones and her argument for maintaining women’s freedom of choice was well-reasoned.

The second thing that struck me was the hundreds of comments on the video. They were, almost without exception, hysterical, vicious, vituperative, emotional personal condemnations of her. Most were barely coherent and none that I actually managed to read had anything to do with her arguments. I have to wonder if any of the commenters even bothered to watch the video. Maybe this was a portent of the election.

Yesterday I happened to see something about fake news. Apparently this is becoming a major source of concern (amongst those who care). Fake news seems to be a social networking phenomenon that goes beyond the simple spreading of false rumours on Facebook and Twitter. From what I read, there actually are organised teams of people on the Internet devoted to making up completely fictional stories and disseminating them as if they are actual journalistic reports. There are also sites dedicated to presenting this fake news as if it is real news.

The other day someone posted an idiotic comment here about Hillary being a devil worshipper. At the time I dismissed it as static. Even Geekzone isn’t immune to this kind of thing. But now I wonder if there isn’t more to it. Did Hillary lose the Presidency because of an orchestrated campaign of fake news reports about her? Where did the devil worshipper nonsense come from? Why are so many of those commenters on YouTube prepared to believe the absolute worst about her, however absurd it may be? To be clear, I am not talking here about the real things that she could justifiably be held to account for. They do exist. But those had nothing to do with the truly hateful YouTube comments I saw.

So did fake news steal the election, and what implications does that have for future elections, assuming there are any?